The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.17           May 4, 1998 
 
 
Letters  
Stalinism and Cold War
In recent issues of the Militant there has been some very valuable coverage linking the U.S. war drive against Iraq to imperialism's long-term goal of restoring capitalism in the workers' states.

But I think some of the terminology used in these articles might be unclear or misleading.

To approach these issues I will pose two interrelated questions:

1. Is the Cold War really over?

2. Did the Stalinist regimes really collapse?

In discussing these two issues, I think the Militant has sometimes lacked clarity.

Regarding the Cold War, the Militant writers have many times used the phrase: "The U.S. lost the Cold War." Using this phrase implies that the Cold War is over, and is no longer a living force in the world. At the same time, the Militant conveys the message that key aspects of what has been called the "Cold War" are still very much a reality in today's world.

The goals of imperialism are the same, the resilience of the workers' states to political and military pressure is still a reality, the ruling petty-bourgeois castes still serve as transmission belts for imperialist pressure, and the apparatus of nuclear weapons that Washington uses to intimidate the world's working people endures in the same form. Aren't these some of the essential features of the Cold War?

It seems to me that the Cold War is still with us today, and is deepening, as the Militant has pointed out, e.g., with the proposed expansion of NATO, the deployment of imperialist troops in Yugoslavia, etc. The Cold War will still be alive until it is transformed into a Hot War, which is the direction that imperialism is headed.

But maybe the Militant is using a narrower definition of the term "Cold War" than I am. It would be good if you could clarify this.

On the other question I raised, that of the "collapse" of the Stalinist regimes - here I think the Militant has not spelled out clearly enough what has changed in the form of rule that prevails in the workers' states, and what has not changed.

Does the Militant have a clear position on whether the Stalinist regime has "collapsed" in Yugoslavia? The Militant refers to the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic as a "Stalinist regime." In using this phrase, you give the impression that the Serbian Stalinist regime is one that has not "collapsed."

Perhaps that's true. In the March 16 Militant lead editorial, you say that: "Under the pressures of a deepening economic stagnation of world capitalism, the Stalinist murder machine that had dominated Yugoslavia began to disintegrate in the beginning of this decade."

But is it really true that the Stalinist murder machine in Serbia has only "started to disintegrate," while its sister regime in the former USSR has "collapsed"? Are you trying to convey the impression that the process in Yugoslavia has only gone part of the way, while in Russia it has gone all the way to "collapse"?

It seems to me that the changes in Yugoslavia are not that different from the changes that have taken place in the former USSR. In each case, there has been partial abandonment of the old methods of rule, the emergence of new "leaders" with purportedly different strategies, an increase in the rhetoric of "democracy" and the "free market," and the exacerbation of nationalist rivalries within the bureaucracies, which has provoked schisms and wars.

Working people forced the bureaucrats to junk the unsustainable, unbearable, strictly-Stalinist methods and organizational forms. But this divestment of old forms did not change the basic sociological and political foundations of the workers' states, nor did it register a new rise in the preparedness of the workers in those states to restore genuine Soviet democracy. These changes did, however, mark a shift in the relationship of class forces to the benefit of the workers and farmers, and thus, a substantial weakening of the structures of bureaucratic misrule.

Instead of saying that the Stalinist regimes "collapsed," I would think it might be more accurate to say that the Stalinist regimes were significantly weakened as effective political instruments of the ruling bureaucratic castes. And this would be just as true of Serbia as of Russia - perhaps even more so, given the presence of imperialist troops in Bosnia and Macedonia.

Jim Miller

Seattle, Washington

Imperialism in Philippines
Thank you for the excellent coverage on the events commemorating 100 years of struggle against U.S. imperialism. I remember reading a very informative article in the ISR [International Socialist Review] insert of the Militant on the fight against U.S. domination in the Philippines at the turn of the century. It was published around the time the Marcos regime was overthrown by the popular mobilization in 1986. I learned from the article that Filipino patriots waged widespread resistance against the U.S. occupations of their country. Filipino insurgents were brutally suppressed. The U.S. forces used methods similar to those used against the Vietnamese people 60 years later. One might rightly call the war in that part of the world the Spanish-Filipino-American War.

Ken Kawakubo

Seattle, Washington

The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of general interest to our readers. Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.

 
 
 
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